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Fringe 2008 Reviews (15)
Frog Man
Meanwhile Theatre Company
The Zoo; the Monkey House
(*)
This half star has to be awarded out of pure sympathy for the actors
who tried hard with what is literally an indescribably pointless, surreal
and painful script. And because one lady leaving the theatre concluded
that seeing something awful was good value for money because you ended
up talking about it so much.
Unfortunately this play is built around a couple's relationship that
flounders. And then the man transforms into a frog. Yes really. As it
began with what was effectively children's theatre acting I thought
that this show had been mistakenly programmed in the evening and should
have been on in the morning for young children. How wrong. It turned
into a piece on child murder and guilt, with a woman who fakes asthma
attacks so that she doesn't have to get pregnant (?!) and a sweating
police diver who gets warts on his hands. Kenny (Andrew Warnock) and
Kelly (Ruth Herbert) may have committed murder when they were young
but it seems they haven't grown up since and spend the play narrating
their lives like two Blue Peter presenters. Credit must go to
Tim Richards whose more convincing portrayal of an outcast child gives
the play some grounding in plausibility. However his unamusing gyrations
with Kelly, the spoilt child of a housewife, don't hold him in our favour
for long. When Kenny returns home to find this scene of ABB- fuelled
lust his ludicrously suppressed jealousy eventually drives him to amphibian
metamorphosis. Why, I simply cannot tell.
With the three actors grinning mercilessly throughout and attacking
the piece with a sort of skipping glee, the writing may be surreal but
it certainly fails to amuse. This piece perplexes, mystifies and tortures
from the start.
Cecily Boys
The Virtuous Burglar
By Dario Fo
BigVillage Theatre Company
Augustine's
***
A fun, short piece of one of Dario Fo's knot-tying comedies in which
a burglar breaks into a house only to find himself embroiled in the
dirty dealings of the many dishonest inhabitants. And, where possible,
solace can rather frantically and all too briefly be found inside the
grandfather clock.
This is undoubtedly an amateur performance with some rather slow pick
up of cues and a classically homemade set but the cast keep the audience
laughing with some enthusiastic performances. Only forty minutes long,
it's worth seeing if you enjoy a bit of Fo's Italian pantomimes.
Cecily Boys
Foreskin's Lament
By Greg McGee
Trailer Trash Theatre
Pleasance Courtyard
*
If Greg McGee is to be believed, rugby players come from a different
planet even further away than New Zealand in the 1970s, when it is presumed
that this show was set.
Like David Storey's The Changing Room (though the rugby code
is different), much of the action takes place in a dressing room and
if you like/dislike seeing naked men on stage attend/avoid as appropriate.
McGee clearly knows how to write and has strong opinions that he streams
from the mouths of the nine characters. The problem is that there is
no drama to hold together the ideas.
The story, such as it is, relates to captain Ken (Phil Pinner), who,
having been crippled in one match, unwisely returns against doctor's
orders the next week to please his coach Tupper (Steven George).
The conspiracy theorists then gang up to point fingers and there is
much tension between educated Foreskin (Dominik Golding), his lawyer
girl (Ro Dalziel), thick, mean PC Clean (Kristian Jenkins) and a couple
of others.
With inconsistent acting and accents and no real plot to hold it together,
this is hard work to take, unless you hail from Planet Rugby.
Philip Fisher
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